Dear Bakeists,
As you can see from my faux military blog post naming convention, I am working on a not so top Secret Project. My mission is to re-create the Goat Cheese Shortbread cookie that I get from the lovely Buttercup Bakery.
I won't bother you with the details of the first attempt, but I will tell you where I am at, and, then, if you are called, you can try to make some yourself. The GCC at Buttercup is made with goat cheese and pecans. I am leaving those out for now, because I want to work at getting it right from the ground up. The cookie at Buttercup also has a ring of coarse sugar adhered to it. This I do include, because it isn't a very sweet cookie, and the crunchy crisp ring of sugar seems key.
All shortbread is made with floury stuff (wheat, rice, cornstarch, sometimes potato four), sugar, and butter. It's really your Ur cookie. The ratios of these three things are variable, and that is where one gets into X-GCC point one, point two, point etc. Here is what I did for this attempt:
1/2 cup butter (salted is fine, but add less salt if you use salted butter)
3.5 ounces of goat cheese
1/3 cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
some salt
1 cup of pastry flour
(you will also need: egg yolk, granulated sugar)
Get all that dairy out of the fridge earlier, so you can mix it more easily. Beat the butter and cheese together, but don't go for fluffy. Add the sugar, the salt, the vanilla; beat, but not to fluffy- just get it combined. Add the flour. Make a baton of it, as for refrigerator slicing cookies, and chill it for a while. 2 hours to 2 days. Beat an egg yolk up, brush it onto the log, press granulated sugar into the egg wash, slice it about 1/2 inch thick, bake it about 12 to 15 minutes (or longer) in a 375 oven.
That is it. To get in on the experimenting, vary the amounts of any ingredient, and add or swap some out. Brown, date, or maple sugar, less goat cheese, more goat cheese, almond flour, no vanilla, you know what to do!
